What is Flatland Skimboarding Progression?

Lets examine this phrase, what is progression? According to the dictionary it is: the development of an individual or society in a direction considered more beneficial than and superior to the previous level. So lets just say we except this definition as a valid statement, and apply it to some of the major attributes that make up flatland skim.

Riders: It’s easy to see that Flatland Skimboarders are getting better and better every year. All one has to do is look up old footage of anyone and you can bet that it would look horrible against his or her recent footage. Even the average skimboarding is at a much higher-level then even 5 years ago. It is this progression at the individual level that pushes the sport forward and also pulse money into the industry at large.

Skimboards: Since the first woodies, it is obvious that a lot of improvements have taken place in the manufacturing of wooden skims, especially for flatland skimboarding. With the creations of flatland focused brands like J-Gordon (usa), Kayotics (canada), Zed (canada), DB (usa), trickoff (sweden) and several other European manufactures we have seen the transition of directional boards of the traditional tear drop being almost completely eliminated by the skateboard influenced twin tip or symmetrical designs. Not only have shapes been altered but also rockers have changed, grip has gone from wax to traction but probably the biggest innovation is the use of Formica as a base. Formica was truly a game changer it allowed skimboarders a better slide on rails/sand and created a longer wearing, performance driven board. Although if we take a look at the last few years, we have seen little progression from board manufactures in terms of new technologies, building materials. Maybe this is because of price point, or maybe flatland decks have gone the way of the skateboard, I don’t know but I hope that eventually we will see another big breakthrough that will change the game once more.

Media: I think this is probably the one part of the sport that has progressed the most in the past few years. We are now seeing high quality videos being released online like the quik fix series from the Kayotics on youtube and the full length DVDs from the guys at DB. We are seeing beautiful photographs from the likes of Bryce Casselman, Yuri Choufour and many more appear all over the Internet including skimboarding’s number one mag foreverskim. It’s the continual exposure of high quality photo and videos that not only entice people to join the sport but also illuminate the talent surrounding it. Everyday we are seeing new stylish videos and photos, and as high end equipment becomes cheaper by the day we can pretty much just assume things are just going to get better.

Contests: Well this one is kind of weird. I would have to say yes overall things are progressing in the right direction. There were more contest this year in North America and Europe then ever before but one of the biggest problems or maybe it isn’t… is there is no governing body for contests in flatland skim. My problem with this is it makes it hard to legitimize the sport in the eyes of larger sponsors, and there fore it is strictly up to the event organizers to raise funds and this hurts the overall quality of events because no one is getting paid to host them. I think there is no other part of flatland skimboarding that shows off the sports growing pains better then its contests. They can be great, progressive, tons of fun, give boatloads of positive exposure for the sport but without a governing body with standardized judging, organization, entry fees, etc I feel like the progression is sort of two steps forward, one step back. With that said it seems like NorthWestSkimTour has brought together a lot of competitions and skim jams under its umbrella in 2010, so maybe it will just take time for a governing body to be created.

So by the looks of flatland skim, we are headed in the right direction in terms of progression. I am sure there are lots of people who would argue the complete opposite but I think its so cool that such a grassroots activity like flatland skimboarding has been embraced by people in Japan, Philippines, Holland, Sweden, Germany, Poland, and countless other places. It is hard to ignore that flatland can be done almost anywhere on the planet, and is a ton of fun.

So here is to progression, not like it could be stopped if we wanted it to be.

Lynch